Recently, I attended a presentation evening, where a number of speakers were given 20 minutes to talk on any subject they pleased. The presentations given were excellent, but there was a recurring, annoying habit by most of the speakers.
The microphones used that day were lapel microphones. These are microphones that are attached to the lapel or shirt of the person speaking. They are excellent microphones as the audience cannot see them, but there is a problem.
The speaker often forgets that they are wearing them and keeps touching them during the presentation. The noise this touching creates is horrible and incredibly distracting to the audience.
So, if you are presenting and have to wear a lapel microphone, make sure that you keep your hands and arms away from them, or at least make sure that they are placed in an area that you will not be touching.
Gov. Chris Christie is fast becoming a star in US politics because of his direct, honest and sometimes argumentative style. Having recently followed the British General Election, an election where not one politician could give a straight answer to a straight question, watching and listening to Chris Christie explaining to a journalist why he is sometimes ‘confrontational’ is refreshing and enjoyable to watch.
As presenters, we too often worry about our “Style” and the way we ‘sound’. But as Chris Christie says:
I could say it really nicely. I could say it in a way you all might feel more comfortable with … but the fact of the matter is; this is who I am, and this is who the people elected
And that is something that we, as presenters, must remember. Be yourself, let your personality and character come out in your presentations and stop worrying about ‘style’.
평볌한 프레젠테이션을 훌륭한 프레젠테이션으로 바꾸는 방법편 마지막에서는 프레젠테이션에서 사용해야 할 영어에 관하여 여러분들에게 많은 도움이 될 5가지 팁을 알려드리고자 합니다.
여기 아래의 5가지 팁을 사용하신다면, 다음에 있을 여러분의 프레젠테이션을 훌륭한 프레젠테이션으로 바꾸실 수 있을 것입니다.
1. 짧은 문장 사용하기
요즘 영어의 트렌드는 짧고 간단한 문장을 사용하는 것입니다. 이런 트렌드의 이유는 짧은 문장이 이해하기 더 쉬우면서도 청중으로 하여금 프레젠테이션이 빠르게 진행되고 있다고 느끼게 해주기 때문입니다. 그리고 또 다른 장점은 영어가 모국어가 아닌 여러분들에게 프레젠테이션에서 사용해야 할 핵심 구문과 문장을 더 기억하기 쉽도록 해주기 때문입니다.
2. Action word 사용하기
영어는 동작을 나타내는 언어이지, 묘사하는 언어가 아닙니다.실제로 영어에서 동작을 나타내는 동사의 수는 감정을 나타내거나 서술하는 형용사에 비해 훨씬 많습니다. 이것은 우리 한국어와 정반대인 셈이죠. 예를 들어 한국어인 “정”을 영어로 표현하기란 매우 어렵습니다. 굳이 영어로 표현하자면 “bonding between friends”가 됩니다. 여기서 보시면 bonding도 동작을 나타내는 단어입니다. 이렇듯, 대부분의 영어가 동작을 나타내는 언어로 이루어지므로, 영어로 프레젠테이션을 하실때에는 항상 행동을 나타내는 동사나 구문을 사용하도록 노력하셔야 합니다. 이렇게 하신다면, 동사에 익숙한 청중들에게 더욱 더 흥미를 고취시킬 수 있을것입니다. Action word의 예로는 다음과 같습니다.
Developed, produced, created, designed, sold and shipped
스티브 잡스가 항상 최근 제품에 관한 업데이트 소식과 함께 프레젠테이션을 시작한다는걸 알고계셨나요? 이렇게 함으로써 스티브 잡스는, 긍정적인 느낌을 갖도록 해주는 단어나 Action word들로 프레젠테이션을 시작하도록 합니다. 이런 단어들은 청중들로 하여금 흥분과 놀라움을 느끼게 해주기 때문입니다.
3. 개인적인 이야기 꺼내기
한국인 프레젠터에 관하여 영어 원어민들로부터 제가 가장 많이 들었던 비평은, 발표자들의 프레젠테이션을 들어보면 항상 사람냄새가 나지 않는다는 것이었습니다. 마치 사람이 아닌 로봇이 발표하듯 내용이 너무 딱딱하고 건조하다는 것입니다. 이런 문제를 해결할 좋은 방법은 여러분 자신의 삶에 관하여 이야기하는 것입니다. 아마도 어린시절 여러분들은 비즈니스 생활과 개인적인 생활은 별개라고 배워왔을 것입니다.그러나 비즈니스는 인간이 하는 것입니다. 즉 비즈니스란, 사람과 사람사이에서 관계를 맺고 교제를 하는 것입니다. 그러므로 프레젠테이션에서 여러분의 개인적인 삶에 관한 스토리를 이야기하셔도 전혀 무방합니다.
아래의 동영상은 테드에서 한 발표자가 프레젠테이션을 시작하면서 자신의 개인적인 이야기를 하는 내용입니다. 이렇게 함으로써, 발표자로 하여금 사람냄새가 물씬 풍기고 청중과 마음이 통하도록 해주고 있습니다.
4. 긍정적인 형용사 사용하기
영어에서 우리는 긍정적인 단어를 듣기 좋아합니다. 이런 단어들은 우리들의 마음을 자극시키고 집중하도록 해줍니다. 프레젠테이션이 부정적인 형용사들로 가득차 있다면 이건 뭐 아주 우리를 꿈나라로 보내주시는거나 마찬가지 입니다. 그러므로, 프레젠테이션을 준비하실 때는 여러분이 사용하고 있는 단어들이 긍정적인 느낌을 가지고 있는지 세심하게 확인하시기 바랍니다. 긍정적인 느낌을 갖는 단어들로는 아래와 같습니다. Brilliant, cool, excellent, fantastic, great.
주의사항!- 똑같은 단어를 계속해서 사용하시는 것은 금물! 계속 똑같은 단어를 사용하시면 Mark Anthony 현상을 만들게 됩니다. ( 이 현상은 세익스피어의 희곡, 줄리어스 시저에서 시저가 암살된 후 마크 안토니가 암살에 관하여 연설을 하면서, 암살자인 브루투스와 카시우스에 관하여 이야기 할 때마다 계속해서 “그들은 고결한 인사( 人士)들이다” 라는 말은 반복합니다. 이 말이 계속 반복되면서 그의 연설을 듣던 청중들은 이 말이 진실이 아니라는것을 알게됩니다. 즉 그들을 비꼬아 한 말이라는 것을 알게됩니다. 이렇듯, 똑같은 단어를 계속해서 사용하시다보면, 여러분의 의도와는 반대로 청중들이 부정적인 느낌을 가질 수 있으니 주의하시기 바랍니다.)
5. 감정에 호소하는 단어들 사용하기
가장 훌륭한 프레젠테이션은 감동을 불러일으키는 것입니다. 이것은 재미있는 감동이 될 수도 있고, 슬픈 감동이 될 수도 있습니다. 어떤 감동을 불러일으키는가는 중요하지 않습니다. 중요한 것은, 감동을 불러일으키는 프레젠테이션은 항상 기억에 오래 남고 사람들 입에 오르내리게 된다는 것입니다. 그러므로 감동적인 프레젠테이션을 이끌어 내기 위해서는 여러분의 청중들이 그 상황을 상상할 수 있도록 만들어야 합니다.
예를 들어: “여러분은 지금 차가 미친듯이 막히는 곳 한가운데 서 계십니다. 그리고 여러분 일생일대 가장 중요한 인터뷰가 5분안에 시작된다고 생각해 보십시오”
청중들에게 하나의 상황을 주고 그들이 어떻게 느끼는지 상상해 보라고 권유함으로써, 청중들은, 여러분들이 그들에게 하여금 느껴보게 하고 싶었던 그 감정들을 느낄 수 있게 되는 것입니다. 이것은 청중과 여러분이 게속해서 하나가 될 수 있도록 이끌어 주는 훌륭한 방법 중 하나입니다.
여기에서 알려드린 5가지 팁들과, 이전 1,2 편에서 드렸던 좋은 정보들을 함께 따라하시면, 어떤 프레젠테이션도 훌륭한 프레젠테이션으로 만들게 될 것입니다. 프레젠테이션에 있어서 여러분들께 좋은 결과가 있기를 기원하며, 항상 모든지 긍정적으로 생각하시기 바랍니다. 아자아자 화이팅 !! ^^
Throughout this blog, and in most of the books written about presenting, there is a lot of advice about ‘following the rules’ of presenting. Recently, I have found myself asking “are there any rules for presenting?” The answer I have come up with is: no. There are no rules for presenting.
The purpose of doing a presentation is to communicate a message to a group of people. If we begin with this in mind, then how we communicate that message is irrelevant as long as we achieve the goal of communicating the message. Do we need to make a fifty slide PowerPoint presentation? No. Do we have to stand up in front of the audience wearing our best suit? No. Do we have to avoid using bullet points? No. None of these things matter – what really matters is that we communicate our message is the most effective way possible.
When we present to a small audience of six to ten people, do we really need to use PowerPoint of Keynote? Why not use a white board or a flip chart? Using a whiteboard or flip chart can give you a chance to get your audience involved, you can ask them to write ideas on the board, you can demonstrate your amazing artistic abilities (if you have them) and you can give your presentation a real live feeling.
Most presentations are done standing up, and while this is probably a good adea when you are presenting in front of hundreds of people, do you really need to stand up when you are presenting to say ten or twelve people? When you stand up to speak you create an air of formality, when you sit down you become ‘one of them’ – by becoming ‘one of them’ you become more approachable, more informal and relaxed.
If you take a look at Hollywood, the movies that are always remembered are the ones that did something different, the movies that were created in a different way, movies like Toy Story, The Blair Witch Project, Star Wars (the original ones) and Pulp Fiction – all these movies are memorable, not just because of the story lines, but because they were different from the ‘standard’ format.
Presentations are all about communication, sadly, we get taught in our universities and in our ‘top down’ managed companies that when we present we must use PowerPoint. This is simply not true, and the future for presenting is for us, the people, to create our own unique styles, to think carefully about how best to communicate our message and throw these old ideas about presenting away.
I have been coming under increasing pressure from my wife to just tell all my readers what I think are the top five things to know when you present in English. So in interest of family harmony, and of course to give the best tips I know to all you guys, here is my top five list.
Never read your presentation. I know I have mentioned this many times, but it is so important, that I will continue to mention it for the rest of time. The simple reason for not reading your presentation is because you focus more on your reading than you do on your audience, and then you end up boring your audience to death. Reading your presentation also means the tone, passion and enthusiasm in your voice is lost. You sound robotic and ultimately boring.
Use images not text in your slides. Whenever you put text on your slides, your audience will read it. One thing that scientists have proved is that the human brain cannot read and listen at the same time. So, when your have a lot of text on your slide, your audience stops listening to you and reads your slides. When this happens there is really no point in you being there. However, when you use an image that is related to what you are talking about, your audience uses their imagination to fit the picture with your words and they experience true understanding. So even if your pronunciation is not great, your audience can understand your words by the use of the image.
Step away from the lectern. One of the biggest problems for people who come from a more conservative, ‘polite’ cultural background is that they stay behind the lectern or table when they give their presentation. When you are presenting to a largely English speaking audience this makes you look very nervous and unsure of yourself. European and American audiences expect you to move around, use hand and arm gestures and express your passion physically. Standing still with your arms firmly by your side, looks wooden, boring and shows a lack of confidence. Next time you are presenting, move the lectern to one side and stand ‘up front and centre’
Speak slowly. Quite often when you are presenting to an international audience, many of listeners are non-native English speakers. If you speak too fast they will not understand you at all. Equally, as a non-native English speaker yourself, your pronunciation may not be perfect all the time, and your native English speaking audience members may not catch the word or phrase you use. To help your audience, speak slowly and carefully and use your slides to help you with difficult words.
Use simple language. Quite possibly the biggest mistake any presenter makes is to assume that their audience has the same level of knowledge they have. Understand something. Your audience does not have the same level of knowledge. Quite often you will use words and phrases that many in your audience will simply not understand at all. Here is a great example. In Korea, medical doctors learn the Korean word for a condition as well as the medical name in English. However, when you are presenting at a medical conference, there will be people in your audience who are not doctors, but for example, pharmaceutical sales representatives. They may not know that “carcinoma of the lung” means “lung cancer” or my favourite “myocardial infarction” simply means “heart attack”. Use the simple, easily understood word so that your presentation can be understood by all your audience members.
I know many of these tips have been mentioned before, but they are so important I felt that they needed to be emphasised. I do hope that you will find them useful.
I had the great honour of attending the TEDx event in Seoul, last weekend. This was a shared event between TEDx Sookmyung and TEDx Myeongdong and the title was “Young Spirit , Visualize Your Idea”.
What was great to see was the seemingly complete move away from text based slides to a much more visual slide. Simple sentences and images say so much more than lines and lines of text, and that was demonstrated in abundance at this event.
The whole event was fantastically organised, with little intro videos before each speaker. This gave the event a feel of professionalism. Below, is a sample of one of the intro videos that was for guest speaker Bill Dresselhaus
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One of the great things about TED is the wonderful resources available on the main TED website. Here you can watch, completely free, some of the world’s best presenters talking passionately about what they truly believe in.
With the creation of the TEDx groups, you too can enjoy a TED event in your very own home town. So check out the TED website for a full list of TEDx cities and go along and watch some amazing presentations – you will not be disappointed.
I must first confess my love of Formula 1 racing before I begin writing this post. I have been a huge fan of Formula 1 since the early 1990s when Nigel Mansell and Ayrton Senna were drivers, and I remember the tragic accident in 1994 when Ayrton Senna died.
Photo courtesy of Flickr creative commons - Photo owned by fox2mike
Yesterday saw the opening of the 2010 Formula 1 Grand Prix, and as usual I was sat riveted to my seat watching both the qualifying and the race. While I was watching it I was struck by the awesomeness of the pit crews. (For those of you wondering what a pit crew is – the pit crew are the people responsible for changing the tyres on the car when it comes in for a pit stop) The pit crews involved in yesterday’s Bahrainian Grand Prix, were changing four tyres in less than four seconds! – that is incredible.
But this got me thinking – how do you prepare for such a high pressure event, where just one simple mistake can cost your team a winning race? The simple answer is practice. Pit crews of all the teams involved in the world of Formula 1 practice, practice and practice again until they can do the tyre change with their eyes shut. They even practice for things going wrong. They simulate problems and they work out the best and quickest solutions to these problems, then they practice handling these problems over and over again until they can deal with the problem in the quickest possible time.
When we do a presentation, quite often there is a team of people involved. You may be the presenter, the driver, but behind you are the people who are making the projector work, your computer sing and for large events someone ensuring that your audience are comfortable. These people are your pit crew.
I wonder how many companies involved in giving presentations today, think about the people who are making sure everything works? How many of these companies have their ‘technical’ staff practice for when things go wrong? My guess in pretty much none of them.
And therein lies a problem. In today’s world we need to be well practiced – and that includes you, the presenter, we need to be prepared for anything and we need to know what to do when things go wrong. We need to work together as a team, because quite often when we present to a customer, the prize for success can run into millions of dollars.
So next time you present, make sure that your team is prepared, practiced as much as you, and ready for anything. Not only will you look incredibly professional, but you will dramatically improve you presentation success.
There are many times when you are presenting that things will go wrong. The projector might not work, your laptop might not be compatible with the equipment you are using, or you may have simply left your cables at your office. Whatever the reason, thing do go wrong sometimes.
This is why having a good, solid backup plan is so important. It is also the reason why relying on reading your slides, or the presenter notes in your software is not such a good idea.
One of the best ways to prepare for possible problems is to actually practice your presentation so that you know it so well that you could present your presentation without the aid of your PowerPoint or Keynote software. (one of my 3 top tips to effective presenting)
When things do go wrong though, the worst thing you can do is to panic. Don’t. Your audience is human. They understand that sometimes things go wrong. Stay calm, work the solution if possible and then continue. If however, there is no immediate solution, if you have the time, suggest a short break so that you can sort out the problem without keeping your audience waiting in the room.
One word of warning here though. If you arrived late and kept your audience waiting, and then things go wrong. Do not expect any sympathy from your audience. You do not deserve and you will not get any. Never, NEVER arrive late to give a presentation. It is asking for something to go wrong.
Here’s the master in action when things have gone wrong during Apple Keynotes. Sit back and enjoy watching an expert deal with problems:
Like most people here in Korea I was enamoured with the amazing skating of Yuna Kim at the Vancouver Olympics. She truly was fantastic. But this got me thinking. What is it that makes her so much better than everyone else. And can we learn anything from this when we do our next presentation.
First, I want you to take a look at Yuna Kim’s performance. This is the short programme that Yuna did last Wednesday:
The first thing that came to my mind was the almost perfect transitions between the beat of the music. It was seamless. Yuna Kim moves from one part to the next part in complete synchronisation with the music. And from this we can learn that when we present we need to move from one slide to the next seamlessly, not looking around at the screen and making sure the slide has changed, but have the confidence to know that the slide has changed. (alternatively, you can use the ‘presenter mode’ on your computer to check so that you do not need to look around)
The next thing you should notice is that Yuna has an amazing ability to tell a story in her skating. The music and her moves tell the story of romance and drama and even without words she conveys the story so that the audience is in no doubt where she is in her routine. When we present we need to make sure that the story within our presentation flows, it should inform our audience where they are in the presentation at any time and it should be relevant to your theme. In Yuna’s case the theme is James Bond, and she ably told the story of romance and action, we also need to make sure our theme tells the whole story.
Here’s something you will notice – the whole routine lasts a little under four minutes, but when you watch it, it feels much less (to me it felt more like two minutes) Because the whole routine was so smooth and flowing as well as entertaining and exciting time seemed irrelevant. When we present we are always up against the feeling from our audience that this is going to be yet another boring presentation. By presenting a flowing and entertaining, as well as relevant presentation your audience will feel they have been in the room with you much less that they really have. This should always be a goal. Your audience must leave the room wanting more, make your presentation flow with relevance, excitement and theme and you too can achieve this.
Yuna Kim really enjoys every moment of her routine and this clearly shows on her face. Because she is so well rehearsed, she does not even have to think about what is coming next, she knows. This leaves her with the opportunity to get out there and really enjoy her performance. When I saw a few of the other skaters the concentration on their faces was intense. They looked like they were thinking about what was coming next, and because of this they did not look like they were enjoying the performance. Yuna’s facial expressions and movement clearly shows she was loving every minute of her performance. If you know you presentation thoroughly, you know what is coming next, you too can enjoy your presentation.
Finally, what really makes Yuna Kim so good is her work ethic. Yuna Kim practices and practices and practices every little move until she is happy that it is perfect. This is one area that most people presenting today neglect and it shows. Without practice you will be an amateur and your audience will know this. To really make a presentation great you need to practice, practice and practice. Practice every emphasis on a sentence, practice even where you will move when you say a certain sentence. Make this your number one priority.
So design your routine (your slideshow) then practice and practice every slide. By doing this you will not need to look round at your screen to remember where you are. You will know, and you will really enjoy delivering your next presentation.
